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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24894283">Five Stages of Fatherhood</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/WrittenByCee/pseuds/WrittenByCee'>WrittenByCee</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Anxiety, Depression, F/M, Fatherhood, Language</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 01:46:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,613</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24894283</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/WrittenByCee/pseuds/WrittenByCee</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Fatherhood can be wonderful but for Leon Kennedy, fatherhood is scary and he is not ready for it at all. How is he going to process your unexpected news?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Leon S. Kennedy/Reader, Leon S. Kennedy/You</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>89</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Five Stages of Fatherhood</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I wanted to release this one-shot for Father's Day but it was far from being finished. But here it is.<br/>I was mainly inspired by the recent posts I saw on Tumblr. I hope did Leon justice and that you'll love this story as much as I loved writing it.<br/>Don't forget to leave a kudo and a comment.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance.</p><p>            They say those are the five stages of grief. Five stages you must overcome to be at peace with yourself. Five stages you must experience, however hard and painful they are, to find the strength to pull yourself back together and keep on living.      <br/>
Leon knew those five stages all too well. He had experienced them more times than he could count through all those years fighting since the Raccoon City incident. They had paved his life, making him wonder why and if he would ever see an end to it all one day. <br/>
But what he didn’t know is that he was about to experience them again. But in a new unexpected way he would have never imagined.</p>
<h2>1.    Denial</h2><p><em>            I’m pregnant</em>. Three simple words that made his simple life suddenly not so simple anymore, repeating and echoing in his head, making him feel like his whole world was suddenly crumbling around him, over him, burying him under rubbles of fear and uncertainty.     <br/>
<em>I’m pregnant.</em> He didn’t just hear that. This was a dream, a hallucination due to sleep deprivation or a silly joke. It had to be. Because it couldn’t be real. This couldn’t happen to him. There was no way he had gotten you pregnant. Yes, you were fooling him. <em>Right? … Right? </em>He had a brief forced laugh, anxiety eating him up slowly. “Please tell me you’re joking.”           <br/>
Pinned to his desk chair, he stared at you waiting for a silly answer or an amused grin. He obviously got neither of them and so he immediately froze, watching you frowning at him with a look that was way too grave and serious to his taste. “Do you really think I would joke about something like this?” Why not? Anything would be better than those three words being the truth. “How can that be so absurd to you that I might be pregnant?”<br/>
<em>Pregnant? </em>He felt suddenly dizzy.<em> No fucking way.  <br/>
</em>Mouth slightly opened, confused and petrified blue eyes fixed upon you, and a marble immobility. That’s all that remained of Leon as he searched for something to say, something to think, something to reassure himself with, something to tell him that this conversation, this moment, was not happening right now.<br/>
<em>Pregnant? Really?</em> “I didn’t get you pregnant.” You stared at him in shock as he relentlessly shook his head. “I couldn’t. It’s not possible. I…” He cut himself off when he saw you looking away, huge tears suddenly flooding your usually joyful (colour) eyes.   </p><p>Clearly, that wasn’t the reaction you expected from him. But that’s all his brain could process at the moment, the only thing it could find to keep him afloat, to prevent him from drowning in panic. “There must be some sort of mistake. I can’t be a father. This is not happening.”        <br/>
Leon was freaking out. He couldn’t deny it. The pounding of his heart in his chest was enough evidence. But years fighting BOWs had taught him not to show any ounce of panic even in the worst situations. So, mechanically, no emotion filtered through in voice, making it almost cold. Actually, it sounded so heartless it rooted you on the spot, unaware of what was going on right now in your boyfriend’s head and unable to understand that his weird reaction was just his reason trying to calm him down and help find a quick way-out before reaching an inevitable end. That inevitable end being Fatherhood.           </p><p>“What are you saying?” You dared ask, your face suddenly pale because of the terrible things he implied.  <br/>
“I don’t want to be a father, Y/N.” He declared looking at you right in the eye. “I don’t want <em>whatever</em> you think is inside your womb right now.” You slumped in your chair, feeling speechless and shocked but most of all, insulted. Did he just call your child a ‘whatever’ and insinuated it wasn’t even there? Was he really denying everything? Saying you were wrong? “Take another test. I’m sure this must be some sort of mistake.”         <br/>
You stared at him, bewildered and fighting to prevent your tears from falling as shock was slowly yet surely turning into sorrow and anger.     </p>
<h2>2.    Anger</h2><p>“There’s no mistake, Leon. A gynaecologist confirmed it. I’m three months pregnant! Fuck, do you really think I denied this pregnancy on purpose?” There was a sudden knot in your throat, strangling all your words. Leon shrugged. “Honestly, Y/N, I don’t get how someone cannot realize they’re pregnant.”           <br/>
“Simple. Imagine your boyfriend almost dying in a bombing attack in DC, then pushing you out when you try to help him. Then one day, after an entire month watching him falling deeper and deeper into depression despite all your efforts to bring him comfort, you realise that he left without telling you where he’s going. After asking a few people, you learn that he’s decided to take some ‘vacation’ but you know all too well that this vacation of his is just him drowning himself in alcohol in some lousy hotel.” You spouted angrily, feeling all your hormones boiling inside of you. “And I guess you can also add his four weeks of radio silence and the worry you felt when you learn that he who you loved so freaking much was almost killed <em>again</em> in another bio-terrorist attack, this time in New York. I guess that’s a pretty good way to make you deny a pregnancy!”  <br/>
“Oh, so this is my fault?!” He asked, almost shouting, thinking your were accusing him when in fact you were just accusing the horrible stress and the worry you had felt for the last ten weeks or so. “I’m the alcoholic bastard who knocked you up and you’re the poor lost innocent girl? That’s what you’re saying?”    <br/>
“Do you even realise how hurtful you are? Do you really think that is what I want to hear right now?” You tried to block a sob, in vain and Leon sighed in exasperation as he briefly rolled his eyes. He won’t have your crocodile tears right now.<br/>
“Don’t force me on a guilt trip, Y/N. Please.” He said, frozen stoicism making his features as strong and cold as marble. “Weren’t you on the pill, by the way?” He frowned, and a tear rolled down your cheek. You wiped it quickly. “You forgot it?”      </p><p>You tried to answer but you knew that the second you would talk it would unleash Leon’s anger and you were not ready to bear it. “For fuck’s sake, Y/N.” Leon gritted his teeth and glared while you instinctively braced yourselves, hands holding tightly at the armrest of your chair. “You only had one thing to think about! One!” He growled, a scolding finger pointed at your face. “Take a fucking pill!”<br/>
“I may have forgotten once” You whispered almost inaudibly.<br/>
“Oh, you forgot?” He scoffed before slamming his hand against the wooden desk as he brutally stood up making you jump in your chair. “And then she blames me for my depression. Fantastic.” You frowned. That’s not what you had meant. “Leon…”   <br/>
“You’re as responsible as I am, Y/N. You may have not realised you were pregnant because of what I did but you are the one forgot to take a fucking pill. And, how could you forget? How could you screw my life, both our lives, like that?” Leon screamed as he walked in circles in his office, like a lion in a cage, except that he was lost. He was lost in fear, panic and anger. And he had no control over them. Hard to bear for someone usually so grounded. And that what was pissed him off the most in this situation. Not the news of your pregnancy but lack of control.      </p><p>“Do you really think I want to be a father at the moment? Or ever? Do you really think our lives or this world are fit to welcome a kid right now?” His voice trembled, powerful emotions finally getting the better of him.<br/>
A child of his could not be born in such an unsafe dark world. A child could not be part of his messed up cataclysmic life. Family was not made for him. He couldn’t be the devoted agent he was, save the world from awful monsters and have a normal life waiting for him at home. Leon had come to that conclusion years ago. And he even had accepted it long before meeting you. <br/>
“No. But it’s there now. So please, let’s figure out what to do.” You begged, understanding his fear and yet still trying to reason with him.   <br/>
“What do you want to figure out, Y/N? I told you I didn’t want to be a father. And I thought I made that pretty clear when we had the baby conversation at the beginning of our relationship.”     <br/>
Crystal clear. No living together, no marriage, no children. So were the terms of your relationship. A sacrifice he had asked you to make if you truly wanted to be with him. And you had made it out of love for him. But there was someone else, someone else you loved as deeply as you loved Leon if not more.</p><p>“So what do I do?” You asked, lost, using the pronoun ‘I’ because you truly felt on your own right now. “Fuck, I don’t know, Y/N. I don’t fucking know.”</p>
<h2>3.    Bargaining</h2><p>            But you eventually made a choice, one Leon never saw coming. And all he got was a letter; a simple piece of paper to explain the sacrifice you had decided to make. A letter not even truly addressed to him that made him realise that words could indeed hurt more than actions because, had he had the choice, he would have taken a thousand knives in the heart over those hundreds painful tearstained words.</p><p>                        “<em>My dear baby, </em></p><p>
  <em>            As I write this to you, you’re barely the size of a peach, taking a small place in my womb but already a big one in my heart in a way I never thought humanly possible. If someone had told me that one day I would love someone that intensely, that unconditionally to a point I would sacrifice everything for them, even my own life, I would have laughed to their face. But here you are, not even born and yet making me take a decision I never believed I would take. Giving up on the man I love.       <br/>
            Yes, it’s going to be just the two of us from now on. Mother and child building a life together. Not the perfect family portrait but it will be ours and it will be full of love and tenderness. And I hope you’ll like it despite its flaws.     <br/>
             I wish I had given you a dad but fate decided otherwise. He decided otherwise. But please, don’t hate him for that. Your dad is an incredible man. A man I love and will always love. A man that will always be a part of me whatever I do. A man that offered me the chance to be a mother. But he is not ready to make a room for you in his heart the way I did.      <br/>
            I guess he would have under other circumstances but you don’t need to know them just yet. What you need to know is that your dad is a hero and that heroes sacrifice themselves. Always. Remember him that way. As a selfless man who chose the safety of the world – the world you live in - over his own happiness, because he’s done too much good for you or me to hate him.           <br/>
            But don’t worry, my baby. While Daddy is making the world a safer place, I am here to make it a loving one. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>            I love you,</em>
</p><p><em>            Your mum</em>.”</p><p>That letter stayed on his coffee table for days, lying there for him to read again and again, next to a bottle of fine old whisky Leon would empty one glass after another, one regret after another, begging God –even though he did not believed in him – to bring you back to him.</p><p>There’s nothing worse than regrets, nothing worse than sitting alone with yourself and wait for sorrow to finally drown you, nothing worse than being lost in a maze of ‘what if’ and ‘if only’ and knowing that you cannot change anything.</p><p>What if he had made an effort? What if he had reacted otherwise and not like an ass? What if he had told you he loved you? What if he had said it would be okay? What if he had simply accepted this baby? How is life would be right now?</p><p>And he imagined it. He imagined himself at home with you in his arms, hand over your belly, feeling his child kicking and rolling under his palm. He imagined your smile, your soft giggles. Your happiness. And it crushed him. It crushed him because he wasn’t able to imagine anything else. He could not imagine the dark world he knew all too well. He could not imagine the fear or the pain he always thought he would feel in this situation.</p><p>And with regrets came guilt.</p><p>If only he had made and effort. If only he had reacted otherwise and not like an ass. If only he had told you he loved you. If only he had said it would be okay. If only he had accepted <em>your</em> baby. His life would be so much better right now.</p>
<h2>4.    Depression</h2><p>But you were gone and with you all his hopes of future happiness. You had taken everything from him, leaving him alone, in the dark and purposeless, wandering in his fancy apartment with a new bottle of liquor each evening.</p><p>Leon knew depression. But this depression, the one he was experiencing right now, was the worst he had ever experienced. Because if you were gone, it was not because of a bullet, it was not because of a bomb or a BOW. It was because of him. It was entirely his fault. And he couldn’t even change it.</p><p>You would not see him, not even talk to him, despite all the messages left on your voicemail or the letters in which he apologized and begged you to come back, telling you if was ready to change and that he was ready to welcome this baby if it meant you'd be together again. And it destroyed him.</p><p>He became a mess and he eventually did what he did best. He left, finding refuge in an isolated part of America, a lost cottage in the mountains to drink his sorrow away in peace, somewhere where no one would judge him or find him.</p><p>He was wrong about the last part. As one day, after weeks and weeks of radio silence and isolation, an old friend came to knock at his door to kick his ass back to where he belonged. Guess there was no escaping Claire Redfield.</p><p>“What the hell do you think you’re doing? The Leon I know would never sit there powerlessly and accept his fate that easily.” Leon would have sent anyone packing after a sentence like that one. But Claire wasn’t just anyone. He listened to her. “You want Y/N back? Then quit your bullshit, Leon, and go find her.”<br/>
“She doesn’t want to talk to me, Claire.” She scoffed, taking his glass of whisky away from him and throwing the liquid away. “So what? You’re gonna stay here for the rest of your miserable life, drinking and crying, and concede defeat? That doesn’t sound like you.” He accepted her scolding, admitting she was right but he had lost the strength to fight.      <br/>
“I know it’s hard, Leon. I do.” Her tone was suddenly so soft and comforting. “I know what it is to lose someone you love as deeply as you love Y/N. But you can still fix it.”  <br/>
“How? She pushed me out of her life. She even moved out. She doesn’t want me anymore.” Claire sighed. “How naïve you are. She loves you. She wants you back. She really does but she doesn’t want you to accept this baby just because you feel like you don’t have a choice. She wants you to want it, truly want it.”</p><p>There was a silence, a moment of introspection in which Leon felt the fear and the anxiety rushing in his veins again, knotting his stomach tightly. “I’m not ready, Claire. I’m scared.” Tears misted up his tired blue eyes.<br/>
“ I know. And it’s normal. But there’s a girl in a hospital out there who’s about to give birth to your child and she needs you, now more than ever.”</p>
<h2>5.    Acceptance</h2><p>            His head was dizzy, his hands were clammy and his legs were trembling. As Leon was following the nurse in the neonatology wing of the maternity hospital, dressed in a hospital uniform, he wondered if it was the smell of disinfectant or the fright he was feeling growing inside of him that was making him want to puke right now. Perhaps a little bit of both.    <br/>
“It’s this way.” The nurse opened a door and waved him to join her by a small incubator in the middle of the room, a sweet smile on her face.</p><p>But Leon froze, completely petrified. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t think. All he could do was watching at his five pounds of fear sleeping few steps away from him. “Someone’s here to see you, little angel. It’s your daddy.”        <br/>
<em>Daddy?</em> The word made Leon tremble and small tears appear in his eyes, tears that instantly grew bigger when the small creature finally moved its tiny arms. “Many fathers are afraid when they come here. But I assure you there’s nothing to fear. Your baby is fragile but you won’t hurt her, I promise.” Leon’s blue eyes met briefly the nurse before fixing themselves upon the face of the little thing lying in the incubator. “A daughter?”  He had a daughter? He was the father of a little girl? This tiny angel in a pink beanie right there?  <br/>
He approached her, instinctively, wanting so badly to see her from up close. She was so beautiful and yet so tiny.</p><p>“Would you like to hold her?” Leon nodded, without thinking twice about it and the nurse made him sit down and remove the top of his hospital uniform, informing him that it would be better for his daughter to feel his skin since it was warmer and more reassuring than any fabric.     </p><p>That first contact felt weird but Leon was certain of one thing, he had never hold anything so minuscule, light and fragile in his entire life. It scared him for a second, afraid she would break, but the instinct to protect her was stronger than anything else.<br/>
“I’ll leave you two alone. If you need anything I’m not far.” Leon didn’t notice the nurse leave, mesmerized by that piece of him nestled in his arms right against his naked chest, watching her with wonder and awe, barely believing that he had made this … that you both had made this. “You’re so perfect.” He whispered as he dared caress her soft tender rosy cheek. His skin felt so rough against hers that she grimaced slightly. “So pure.”</p><p>Her hands were so little, just like her feet. Leon touched her fingers, still impressed by their size and shivered when they suddenly grabbed his index. “Wow, how strong you are, little princess.” He grinned, looking at her weak grip until he felt a pair of eyes staring at him.</p><p>They were dark and blue, soft innocent baby eyes scrutinizing him with astonishment, discovering his face and bonding with him in ways Leon had never thought possible. He could see the world in those blue eyes just as much as his daughter was discovering the world through his. <br/>
And he could feel love, strong and unconditional, a love he would never be able to feel for anyone else, he was sure of it. A fatherly love. One that would make him move mountains just for the sake of protecting his child. One that would make him give up his life for hers. How beautiful yet how scary.</p><p>And he cried tears of joy and guilt, happy to have her in his life and yet sorry that he hadn’t be there for her sorry. He had missed too much. First echography, first move, first kick, first cry. All that because of fear and stubbornness. And he felt awful because of it.          </p><p>A hand pressed gently on his shoulder. Leon turned around to see you standing next to him, a tired smile on your face. “Y/N”  You knelt by his side, softly caressing the head of your daughter who had fallen asleep in the strong arms of her father. “I’m sorry... I am so sorry. I should have been there for you.”           <br/>
“ You’re here now. And that’s all that matters.”</p><p>Yes, he was here and he would remain here, by his daughter’s side and by yours, until his last breath. For first steps, first words, first birthday, first drawing, first day at school, first love, first heartbreak. He would forever be here for her and make the world a safer place for her. He had finally found a reason to keep fighting. And it was five pounds of pure love.    </p><p>Little (baby’s name) Claire Kennedy.</p><p>Making his life brighter despite five stages of fatherhood he would willingly go through again if it meant he could hold her in his arms forever.  </p>
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